Thursday, 28 October 2010

At the weekend I visited the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair in Manchester. Now in it's third year, this is the leading selling event for contemporary craft in the north. Each year the fair has got bigger, and this year saw the addition of an extra pavillion, which accommodated a new feature for 2010, the Great Northern Graduates section. This featured 14 of the best new designers from the North's craft and design courses. My favourites of the graduates were Jess Edwards who makes embroidered textile works that cross the boundaries between textiles and photography, and Catherine Carr who makes crocheted glass vessels inspired by the role, memories and skills that women have of working in the textile industry.

On the whole I felt the fair was very good, I was there on the Sunday and it seemed to be well attended. For me though there were to many jewellers working in a to similar way. The stand out makers for me were ceramacist Adam Frew, who makes pots made from porcelain decorated with inky cobalt drawings. The imagery is simple and narrative and has a great spontaneity. Judith Davies's porcelain vessels which have a delicate ethereal quality which to me looked like abstract paintings in ceramic form, together with the work of Elspeth Edmondson exhibiting side by side the work complemented each others really well. Elspeth's work investigates the structure of paper in combination with the letterpress print process.
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Monday, 18 October 2010

One of my favourite online shops is Dee Puddy Garden and Interiors. Dee has a range of beautiful items to decorate home and garden. Handmade collectables, storage solutions and lighting, bringing together colour and texture as well as practical and functional elements. I especially like her range of christmas decorations and gifts.

Wednesday, 13 October 2010

This is the current picture that I have on my desktop, I came across it whilst browsing some blogs. I love the bright colours and the patterns, it just makes me smile. It is by an artist called Ginette Lapalme and was intended as a T shirt design it is called stix.

Thursday, 7 October 2010

The only place I have been this year is Blackpool and even that was just a day trip. So I am trying to get the most of the photographs that I took, I also needed an update on using photoshop so here is my Blackpool montage.

Wednesday, 6 October 2010

I love these images which I came across whilst browsing the internet. They are the work of Gordon Young a visual artist who creates art for the public domain. They were made for a new library in Crawley West Sussex in 2009. The artist has created a forest of oak columns which stand floor to ceiling throughout the library. Information was gathered from library users on their favourite books, places and memories, this was used to generate the 14 columns, each column reflecting a different subject from gothic to romantic and sited in their relevant locations.